Roll Call's Lauren W. Whittington reports that Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., once again, is saying that the ethics committee has nothing on him:
Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Rangel said that the charge against him has no merit and has no facts, and he repeatedly asserted that no one outside of the press " he specifically called out a New York Times reporter " has made allegations and that there has been no accusations coming from the Congress.Continue readingRangel said several times that no one other than a reporter has accused me. When pressed on why the Committee on Standards ...
Dodd controversies continue to swirl
Sen. Christopher Dodd is getting criticism from out-of-state ">papers (but note the all the Connecticut residents quoted) over the AIG bonus bungle, but the Hartford Courant ran what might be the most significant story (hat tip: Instapundit, who has a lot more on Dodd):
An executive at mortgage giant Countrywide Financial overrode the company's loan-writing policies to give a discount to Sen. Christopher Dodd, the powerful chairman of the Senate banking committee, according to an internal Countrywide document turned over to congressional investigators and obtained by The Courant.
The Courant notes that the report, some 63 pages long, is ...
Continue readingDodd did it update
Apparently, Geithner did it too. (Previous Dodd did it post here.) As this episode illustrates, there ought to be a better way of tracking whose fingerprints--those of members of Congress, administration officials, lobbyists--are on which parts of what bills.
Continue readingDodd did it
Sleuthing the Stimulus’ bonus provision
So maybe Dodd's not to blame for the AIG bonus furor. Jane Hamsher uses OpenCongress.org to compare versions of the bill -- Donnie Shaw explains how here. Hamsher concludes:
So -- in the end, all compensation limits only applied to contracts written after February 11, at the specific request of Timothy Geithner, and AIG was able to pay out $286 million in bonuses on Sunday.It's impossible to know how many of those bonuses would have been covered by Dodd's original language without examining the individual contracts. What is certain, however, is that the loophole regarding "retroactivity" which ...
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Dodd’s tbd fundraising reception
Facing what looks like a tougher-than-expected reelection effort, Sen. Christopher Dodd has a fundraiser scheduled for tomorrow evening, March 18, at a location "TBD." (click the link to see the invite) Dodd is asking "hosts" to pony up $10,000 (PACs will be the hosts, and they'll be asked to give $5,000 for the primary and $5,000 for the general election, maxing out in March for an election twenty months away. To be a co-host, a PAC can contribute $5,000, while individuals can get in the door (which door?) for a mere $1,000 ...
Continue readingMurtha’s pass through earmarks
Earmark disclosure isn't going to do any good if members can designate a middle man to take funds, then distribute them to private companies. But that's exactly what the Washington Post says Rep. John Murtha has been doing, and they've got documents to back them up:
A Pennsylvania defense research center regularly consulted with two "handlers" close to Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) as it collected nearly $250 million in federal funding through the lawmaker, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post and sources familiar with the funding requests. The center then channeled a significant portion ...Continue reading
Another guilty plea in Abramoff case
Roll Call's Jennifer Yachnin reports:
Former Senate aide Ann Copland pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday to one count of conspiracy to commit fraud, acknowledging she accepted more than $25,000 in gifts including tickets to sporting events and concerts from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his associates.Copland, a longtime aide to Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) who left in 2008 to join Mississippi Public Broadcasting, has agreed to cooperate with Justice Department attorneys in their long-running investigation into lobbying activities on Capitol Hill. Copland is among the 18 individuals, including the incarcerated Abramoff, to be charged with wrongdoing ...
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Dodd’s Dealings Illustrate Holes in Financial Disclosure
Via InstaPundit comes this commentary from the Hartford Courant by Kevin Rennie, an attorney who writes a weekly column for the paper, on Sen. Chris Dodd's real estate deals. The Senate Ethics Committee is already looking at his mortgage with Countrywide Financial (more details here); Rennie writes that other Dodd properties might be worth looking into:
It was reported here two weeks ago that Downe's real estate development partner, William "Bucky" Kessinger of Kansas City, Mo., purchased a 1,700-square-foot home in Ireland with Dodd in 1994 for $160,000. Downe's name appeared on the transfer document ...Continue reading
Treasury Taking a Bath on TARP
Via twitter, via Right Org, comes this very cool way of tracking the Treasury Department's Troubled Asset Relief Program investments from Ethisphere -- almost like an S&P index of stocks of publicly traded firms that have received money from TARP:
For the week ended February 13, 2009, the aggregate Ethisphere TARP Index is down a total of $86.5 billion, out of the original investment principal of $195.5 billion for a total balance of $109 billion. However, the Adjusted Ethisphere TARP Index, which excludes the calamity investments, has an aggregate loss $27.6 billion as of the week ...Continue reading
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